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What Is Augustine Does Not Just To Do Evil

767 Words4 Pages

Ben Larsen
PHIL-202
02/20/2023
Evil Just to do Evil
Augustine argues that people doing evil just to do evil is nothing more than human nature. We as humans will choose to do evil for no other reason than to feel the pleasure from it.He tells us that humans are naturally born with a weak will power. With sinning being easier than doing what's good, it's easy to say that humans were meant to sin. He saw humans as fundamentally flawed and the only way to get better was to turn to God. When Augustine said that people were born fundamentally flawed, he also thought that we have the ability to choose the good and to resist temptation by turning to God. He saw the human will as being able to be reformed and strengthened through a process of moral …show more content…

He tells us a story of him stealing pears with a bunch of friends. The story goes that he and a group of guys were walking by a pear tree, and they just took the pear knowing fully well that this was against the law and a sin. Augustine reflects back on this event, and says that he had no need for the pear; he even had better pear at home. He stole them simply because it was forbidden, and when he stole them he felt a strange pleasure. That strange pleasure was the evil part of human nature. When we look back at this story it shows us how important experiences are even if they are sins or mistakes. These will have helped us understand ourselves and how we understand our relationship with …show more content…

To do this you have to practice virtues such as love, humility and self-control. But it's not enough to just live by these good virtues, you also need to avoid the bad ones such as greed, envy and pride. Augustine believed that by living a loving virtuous life, we can come closer to God and feel his love and good graces.
People doing evil just for the pleasure of it raises the question about what is our relationship between pleasure and good. Pleasure is a natural good, all of our actions should be based on our ability to be happy or well off. And pleasure should not come from doing morally wrong action to provide pleasure. For many people God is that natural good, he helps people be happy because he knows what is best for us. So when we turn to God we are turning to the possibility of being good and happy. Whereas if we choose not to turn to God, we will be turning away from real happiness and

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